VAISH Alex Marino is the bane of my existence. He’s arrogant, insufferable, and worst of all—completely immune to my authority. As my bodyguard, his job is to keep me safe. Instead, he spends his time getting on my nerves, ignoring my orders, and acting like I’m some helpless damsel in distress. I hate that he’s always right. I hate that he watches me like he owns me. And I really hate that my body reacts to him in ways it shouldn’t. Once upon a time, I had a stupid, fleeting crush on him—the kind that should have died the moment I realized he was nothing but a cocky, overprotective menace. But then one night, I stumble upon a masked man in a viral video. A man whose movements feel uncomfortably familiar. A man who reminds me too much of the bodyguard I can’t stand. I don’t know who he is, and I tell myself I don’t want to know. But Alex? He looks at me like he already owns me. Like he’s just waiting for me to figure it out. And once I do, there will be no running from him. ALEX She’s my job. My responsibility. My most dangerous temptation. Vaishnavi Navarro isn’t just the billionaire heiress I’m assigned to protect. She’s the girl who once made me feel something before I learned how to bury it. The girl I swore to stay away from. But the problem? Vaish doesn’t make anything easy. She pushes, and I pull. She fights, and I make her surrender. She thinks she can control everything—including me. But that’s where she’s wrong. Because she has no idea. She doesn’t know about the double life I lead. She doesn’t know that the masked videos taking the internet by storm—the ones that have women obsessed—are mine. And she sure as hell doesn’t know that every time I put on that mask, every time I let the world see me, I’m thinking about only one thing. Her. She’s spent years pretending I don’t affect her. But that’s about to change. Because Vaish can hate me all she wants, but soon, she’ll realize the truth—she was mine long before she ever knew it. And I’ll make damn sure she never forgets it.